Beautiful Disaster
by Lady Henrietta
Summary: OneShot: Haunted by guilt from New Caprica, Bill keeps trying to pay a penance. Can Laura help him? Spoilers from Unfinished Business are used. RoslinAdama


Disclamer: Battlestar Galactica belongs to Ronald D. Moore and the Sci-Fi channel. Spoilers from "Unfinished Business" will be indicated using /…/ while flashbacks will /_look like this_/. Beautiful Disaster by Kelly Clarkson has been used and will appear in _plain italics_.

Beautiful Disaster

/President Laura Roslin watched in anguish as Chief Tyrol hit Admiral Bill Adama hard. Adama punched him back and the crowd could see that even though the 'Old Man' was not as young as they all were, he could be just as dangerous in the ring. Tyrol hit him again and Adama retaliated, before going down. As the admiral struggled to get back on his feet, Tigh helped him up and over to the stool where Major Cottle and Roslin watched him anxiously./

/The crotchety doctor eyed the admiral with a mixture of irritation and concern. "That's enough already, you should quit."/

/Roslin sighed and spoke to Adama with her hands on his right arm. "You insist on doing this, then I'm gonna help you. Alright, keep your guard up, get him with your left hook. You wanna win?"/

/He had closed his eyes to ward off the pain for a moment. "I'm not gonna win," he told her./

_He drowns in his dreams  
An exquisite extreme I know  
He's as damned as he seems  
And more heaven than a heart could hold  
And if I try to save him  
My whole world would cave in  
It just ain't right  
It just ain't right_

/_Bill, what are you thinking? You're going to get yourself killed,_ she thought to herself. She watched the fight dejectedly as Tyrol continued to throw punches at Adama. Bloody and sore, the older man fell to the ground and the fight went to Tyrol. But Adama was not finished with what he had set out to do. He felt dazed for a moment as Tyrol pulled him up. After taking a wheezing breath, he had something important to say./

/"When you stand on this deck, you be ready to fight, or you dishonor the reason why were here. And remember this when you find a man who's not your friend, same goes when you leave me, I forgot that once, I let you get too close, all of you. I dropped my guard, I gave some of you breaks, let some of you go before the fight was really over, I let this crew and this family disband and we paid the price in lives, that can't happen again."/

/Having said what was on his mind, Adama left the ring, allowing Roslin to take his arm and walk him out with, Colonel Tigh following/"Alright, the dance is over, get your booze and your dog tags and get outa here," Tigh called out./

_Oh and I don't know  
I don't know what he's after  
But he's so beautiful  
He's such a beautiful disaster  
And if I could hold on  
Through the tears and the laughter  
Would it be beautiful   
Or just a beautiful disaster_

The three meandered back to Adama's quarters. After seeing that he was seated on the couch, she took off her jacket and laid it over the arm of the couch near where she had seated herself. Looking down at her hands, she realized that she was still holding his glasses and dog tags.

Tigh took a chair near the desk. "Well, you've outdone yourself this time, Bill. Whether or not those people needed to hear it, you sure as hell didn't need to get beat up over it," the colonel commented.

Adama slowly glanced in his direction. "Saul, I did what needed to be done," he said with a tone of finality.

Roslin was not willing to let the matter end there. "Bill," words failed her for a moment as she looked at the battered warrior before her. "Why?" she managed.

New Caprica/_He was sitting on the ground when she walked over to him. "Didn't expect to find you playing in the sand," she said in a teasing tone./_

_/"Used to be the river," he mentioned. The sunlight caught the red highlights of her usually dark auburn hair and as he took notice of her, he eyed the wine-colored blouse she wore. "That's a nice color on you, it's good to see you, Laura."/_

_/She smiled over at him almost affectionately. "You too Bill," she answered./_

Present: He looked over at her, watching her for a moment. _I didn't know she had a shirt that color_, he mused. "What I told them out there should tell you why. They need to be a fleet again, to work as a family, and to understand the cost of throwing in the towel too early," he grumbled.

"Did you have to get the crap beaten out of you to tell them that?" she demanded, setting his glasses and the dog tags on the table near the lamp.

"This is my way of paying a penance," he stated gruffly with a half-wheeze as he tried not to grab his side.

She glared at him over the top of her glasses and sighed in frustration. "The medal was your penance. You didn't have to do this," she argued.

"This was my penance for New Caprica!" he snapped, turning away from her. Tigh decided to quietly leave, feeling a heated argument between the president and the admiral coming on.

_He's magic and myth  
As strong as what I believe  
A tragedy with   
More damage than a soul should see  
But do I try to change him   
So hard not to blame him  
Hold me tight  
Baby hold me tight_

Walking directly in front of him, Roslin pulled off her glasses and slammed them down on the table. Then she locked her eyes with his. "The frak it was! Bill, you're lucky you can still move."

With groan and a mental effort to suppress the pain for just a second, he managed to stand and he started to head toward the door. "Laura, it's not your problem, so I suggest you go back to your ship and let me handle it myself."

She moved over to his desk. "Bill Adama, I am not done with you yet!" she said quietly, but sternly. Then she spotted the blade of an antique letter opener near the lamp on his desk. He turned, planning to shoo her out and watched as she picked it up. Then she undid the buttons on her left sleeve. "If you think you need to pay a penance for New Caprica, then I might as well join you because it was just as much my fault as yours. Hell, it was even more my fault than yours."

His eyes widened when he realized that she was planning on cutting herself with the letter opener. With speed that he knew he would regret later, he reached the desk and grabbed the letter opener away from her. "No!" he began sharply, but then calmed, "No it wasn't. I let people take leave, you warned me that it was only a break. I put those people down on that planet, and therefore I put them in danger," he argued.

Adamantly shaking her head, she walked over to him. "I tried to steal an election."

"You should have won and we both know it. I left the true president of the colonies on that planet during the Cylon attack because there was no other choice," he retorted. "I left you in danger along with everyone else."

_I'm longing for love and the logical  
But he's only happy hysterical   
I'm searching for some kind of miracle  
Waited so long   
Waiting so long_

He had personalized the argument and she realized it. Taking a deep breath, she put her left hand gently on his shoulder. "Bill, New Caprica was not _your_ fault, it was _our_ fault. If you feel that you frakked up and I know that I frakked up, then _we_ frakked up and it's not just _your_ problem, but _ours_," she conveyed softly.

"I could use a shower," he said after a long pause.

"Judging by how you've been wheezing, you probably should see Major Cottle eventually because I'm certain you broke something," she recommended.

"I'll wait until the other officers have been treated," he responded.

She took him by the hand and walked him toward his bathroom. "That's fine, but let me fix this at least," she stated as she turned on the faucet and let cool water run down a brown washcloth. Then she began gently wiping the blood from his face.

"Thank you," he said when she had finished. She left the bathroom and sat on his couch, thinking as she listened to the shower run.

"You're still here," he observed after having finished his shower and changed his clothes. Due to his injuries, every step in that process had been blindingly painful.

She stood and walked toward him, staring at his buttoned uniform and shaking her head. "Do you intend to go to Life Station and see Major Cottle?" she probed.

"No, getting lectured from you was bad enough. I don't want to deal with him just yet," Adama admitted.

Roslin smirked. "Then you'll be dealing with me, so you might as well take off your shirt," she stated bluntly.

He raised an eyebrow and studied her incredulously. "Excuse me?"

She rolled her eyes at the realization of where his mind had gone. "I intend inspect the damage and help you wrap your chest. I can't do it through buttons," she commented.

"You are probably the most stubborn woman alive," he grumbled.

"That's right," she agreed.

"You're not leaving until I let you help," he realized.

She smiled back at him and shook her head. "Nope."

"Fine," he submitted. While he unbuttoned his jacket, she headed into his bathroom to look for wrapping gauze. When she returned, he was out of his uniform top, but still in a gray and black undershirt.

She sighed. "I can't help you through that either," she told him.

"Won't be pretty," he remarked.

"I've probably seen worse," she attempted to reassure him.

Seeing that she was not going to 'let him off the hook' in the matter, he sighed and slowly removed his shirt, very aware of the scars from the surgery and the two bullet holes. She took a slow, deep breath as she studied what she saw. The scars reminded her painfully of the moment when she had been in the brig and Lee had come in with blood all over his hands. Slowly she lightly traced the scars with her fingers, also noting the blue-black bruises from the match. _Oh Bill, how could you do this to yourself?_ She swallowed hard and tried to play the role of the nurse as she wrapped his chest.

_He's soft to the touch  
But frayed at the ends he breaks  
He's never enough  
And still he's more than I can take_

He had seen the emotion in her eyes. At first he had figured it to be pity, but then he realized that the look she was giving him was her way of scolding him and wishing for his own sake that he had not gotten hurt at the same time. He inhaled sharply as she adjusted the gauze. "Sorry," she managed.

"They need to be tight," he added.

When she had finished, she helped him slip his undershirt on again and then he shrugged his jacket back on, but left it unbuttoned. Feeling slightly better, he made his way to the cabinet and found two glasses before finding a bottle of Ambrosia. "I could use a drink; how about you?" he asked her.

New Caprica/_Adama and Roslin stood at the celebration for the ground breaking ceremony drinking classes containing an amber-colored liquid. _"_You say this stuff rolls around here," he commented./_

_/She nodded. "Comes from a steam. The water is so clear, it's like looking through glass."/_

_/He took another gulp and studied the substance. "It's good," was his verdict./_

_/"It is good," she agreed, smiling at him./_

Present: She nodded and he poured two glasses. He tried to think of a toast when they were sitting on the couch again, but could not find what he was looking for. "I'd like to toast, but I'm drawing a blank. Got any ideas?"

Swirling the green liquid around in her cup, she smiled at him and touched his free hand with hers. "How about we toast to new ideas and better plans?" she suggested.

"Sounds good," he told her with a calm smile of his own. They toasted and sipped their drinks in silence for a while.

She broke the silence. "You should be more careful. A man can only be put back together so many times," she advised.

He chuckled before he realized that it was going to hurt. "I like it better when you do it though. You have better bedside manner than Cottle."

Though she laughed with him, the humor did not reach her eyes. "I'm serious, Bill. If you keep letting everything that you feel bad about just keep kicking the crap out of you, there won't be enough of you left to run the fleet. And then there is the truly depressing aspect of trying to debate with you while you're in a hospital bed. It would be pointless really because my sympathy would get the better of me and I'd just be letting you win all the time. Now what fun would that be?"

She might have been serious when she had started her speech, but he knew that she was teasing him at its close. He took another gulp of the green liquid. "And what would you recommend?" he asked with a wry grin.

"Better negotiation skills," she responded.

He brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear and his hand lingered on her shoulder. "And who better to train me than the person I do nothing but negotiate with?" he goaded her. Somehow they had scooted closer to each other without realizing it as the drinking glasses were set on the coffee table.

"One good thing did come out of New Caprica though. You and I got a chance to be just 'Bill and Laura,'" she pointed out.

New Caprica:_ /Adama and Roslin had decided for no other reason except the relaxation of it to lie on the ground and look up at the stars, not having had a planetary look at them in quite a while. After a few minutes, they had moved from lying next to each other to being curled up with each other./_

_/"This is how we'll spend all the rest of our days. Maybe we should just enjoy this," she conveyed./_

_/"I am," he remarked in his gravely voice./_

_/She smirked and shifted closer to him. /"I mean enjoy being here on this planet as long as it lasts… you got a break."/_

_/He was simply content to watch the stars for a moment. "I've got people who want to get off this ship, move down here," he mentioned./_

_/"Can't say as I blame them," she added./_

Present: His thumb brushed her cheek. "Can we still be those people?" he asked, thinking back to the stargazing they had done on the planet.

She gave him a careful hug so as not to aggravate his injuries. "I think we always have been. My losing the election and our time on the planet put us out of our usual places and we were ourselves, if only for a little while," she reasoned.

He looked into her green eyes, searching the depths for an understanding, and a confirmation. She seemed to be staring into his dark blue eyes for the same reason. Both remembered the pain they had been through, both separately and together. Guilt and regrets had accompanied everything. And then there had been moments of happiness and a sense of peace. "And what do you think would have happened if we could have stayed like that?" he asked quietly.

_Oh and I don't know  
I don't know what he's after  
But he's so beautiful  
He's such a beautiful disaster  
And if I could hold on  
Through the tears and the laughter  
Would it be beautiful  
Or just a beautiful disaster_

She gave him a sad smile. "We would have lived in the cabin that I told you about, the one by the stream…" she trailed off, not wanting to cry for what she felt she would never have.

"I can't promise you a cabin, or even if we'll reach Earth in our lifetimes, but we can still be 'Bill and Laura,'" he whispered.

Easing her to him, he wrapped his left arm around her waist and cupped her face with his right hand. Her hands rested lightly on the back of his neck. Their noses touched first, brushing in Eskimo kisses. With her cheek, she could feel the weathered skin of his face and he could feel the soft skin of her face. Slowly they drew closer, sharing the same breath. Both slowly closed their eyes and then their lips met, slowly, gently. Tender kisses spoke what words could not. Then the kisses became more ardent.

They broke away for air, both blushing. "I've been wanting to do that since I watched you giggling when you were preparing for your debate with Baltar."

"You're not the only one," she whispered as they rested their foreheads together.

He kissed her affectionately. "We've wasted too much time arguing about things that don't matter. I want to talk about something that does matter," he began.

"I'm listening," she told him, gently stroking his back.

"We've been moving in circles for too long, even throwing punches at each other from time to time. Its time that we stopped our own 'dance.' Truth is that," he paused to compose himself, not being one to share feelings easily, "I love you."

She grinned brightly and kissed him a few times. "I love you too," she replied softly.

"Laura, I want to-" a knock at the door interrupted him.

"Stay right there, Bill, I'll get it," she remarked, slowly disengaging herself from him and standing.

While she walked over to the door, Adama fiddled with his wedding ring. Roslin opened the door to a bloodied, bruised Major Lee Adama. "Lee, what in Kobol's name have you been doing?" she asked with concern.

The younger man wiped his blooded nose on his wrist. "I'm sorry about my appearance, Madame President, but I need to speak with my father," he explained.

Adama had grabbed his dog tags while the other two were talking. He undid the chain so that the tags fell into his hand and he slid the wedding ring onto the chain. Then he grabbed Roslin's jacket and dropped the chain in the right pocket. She let Lee in and turned back to Adama.

"I should probably go," she simply stated.

He smiled warmly and handed her the jacket. "Why don't you come by tomorrow for dinner?" he invited.

"I'd like that," she relayed, also smiling. He cupped her face with his hand and kissed her tenderly. "Goodnight, Laura."

She kissed him back. "Goodnight, Bill."

Lee had watched the exchange with interest, surprised at the closeness between the two. She turned back before leaving and nodded to him. "Good evening, Lee."

He nodded back. "Madame president."

She left and put her jacket on, heading back to _Colonial One_. After an evening of reading through the files on her desk, Roslin yawned and slipped her coat off, planning to dress for bed. As she took it off, she heard a slight rustling. Raising an eyebrow, she looked the jacket over. Then she checked the pockets. She reached into the right pocket and felt a chain. _I thought I gave his dog tags back to him_. But as she slowly pulled it out, she gasped when she saw what was on the end. _This is Bill's wedding ring. What could he possibly be up to? I suppose it'll have to wait until tomorrow_, she surmised.

The Quorum had ensured that the following day dragged by. She had decided to wear the chain with the ring around her neck, concealing it underneath her blouse. Around the middle of the afternoon, she managed to slip away from business and head to Galactica. After arriving at CIC, she looked for the admiral, but did not see him.

Tigh looked over at her. "Was there something you needed, Madame President?"

"I was just looking for the admiral," she stated.

"He's in his office," Tigh relayed. She thanked him and headed to the office. Tigh smirked and shook his head. "This'll be interesting."

Hearing a knock on the door, Adama told whoever was on the other side to enter. He glanced up with surprise to see Roslin walk in, forgetting to shut the door. "Madame President-"

"I'm not here on business, Bill," she interjected. "Shouldn't you be back in your quarters resting?"

"Cottle thinks so, but I'm not doing much in here and therefore he can't throw me out of my own office." Adama stood slowly and walked over to her, greeting her with a light kiss. "Laura, should I ask what you're doing here?"

She smirked. "Hiding."

He raised an eyebrow. "From who?"

"The Quorum," she told him.

"Why?" he questioned.

She sighed heavily and ran her fingers through her hair. "They decided to have several small meetings where I meet with the delegates from each colony and we discuss issues that they bring up. Normally I like to be informed about what is happening within the colonies. However, these delegates are brining me issues that will only work and benefit a very small elite group of people. I will not bow to special interest groups when there are more pressing needs to attend to," she explained.

"Maybe I should have asked for the short version," he joked.

"That would be how the Quorum has decided to bore me into old age between Cylon visits," she added.

He chuckled and kissed her warmly. She kissed him back tenderly and the spoke again, looking into his eyes. "Bill, there's a certain ring that we need to talk about."

Clearing his throat, he looked down at the floor for a moment. "It was probably too presumptuous-"

She could not let him finish. Undoing the top button of her blouse, she pulled out the chain with the ring and he watched with curiosity. "I wouldn't say that," she relayed, grinning wryly.

_Oh and I don't know  
I don't know what he's after  
But he's so beautiful  
He's such a beautiful disaster  
And if I could hold on  
Through the tears and the laughter  
Would it be beautiful  
Or just a beautiful disaster_

He took her hands in his. "I don't know how soon it'll happen, or what the press will do to us, but I know that I'd like the priviledge to call you 'Laura Adama' someday."

Her eyes glittered as she smiled at him. "I'd like that too," she conveyed.

"It'll probably be a bumpy ride," he added.

She giggled and he had the urge to kiss her again. "So say we all," she remarked before his lips covered hers in a passionate kiss.

Tigh had decided to bring Adama the reports for the day and stopped dead in his tracks when he glanced into the admiral's office. Chuckling, he closed the door and decided that the reports could wait. "Should've let her watch him box a long time ago," he muttered with a grin as he headed back to CIC.

Fin…………………………………………………..


End file.
